


love is what warms us

by rosecake



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Jorah Mormont Lives, warmth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:09:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: Jorah survives the Long Night, but just barely.





	love is what warms us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingstoken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingstoken/gifts).

“Is he going to live?” asks Dany.

She tries to keep her voice even, but despite her best efforts it breaks apart towards the end of her question, making her sound more like a lost child than a queen come to conquerer.

The Northern maester looks sideways at her and shrugs. “I don’t think I can rightly say one way or the other at this point.”

His uncaring tone irritates her, but he’s been awake just as long as the rest of them - it must be going on two days now, and before the battle they all slept restlessly - so she holds her tongue. He’s tired, and she thinks he’s done his best with Jorah, and it’s not as if she has a better healer to replace him with if she were to strike him down in from spite.

“I’ve done what I can for him,” continues the maester. Dany’s sure someone told her his name, but she’s since forgotten it in the mad rush of the battle against the Night King. “I’d say his odds are decent if he makes it through the next couple of days.”

Dany exhales sharply. It isn’t the answer she wants, but it’s not unexpected either. She nods and the maester leaves, off to stitch back together whatever wounded have survived the wait for his attention. The room they tucked Jorah away in is small, with barely enough room between the bed and the fireplace for safety, but she doesn’t mind it. Smaller rooms are easier to keep warm in these Northern reaches. Ordinarily the cold doesn’t bother her much, but the Night King left his mark on her before dying. There’s a fear in her more chilling than anything she’s ever felt before, and none of the fires in Winterfell have been able to warm her. 

Her hands shake as she reaches for Jorah’s unconscious form, laid out on the bed as if he’s merely sleeping. Her own bed calls to her, and exhaustion certainly isn’t helping her tremors any, but the though of leaving him alone is too much to bear. Jorah stayed by her side, after all, until the bitter end. He did not collapse until after the dead did, even after what seemed like a hundred blows struck home against his body. So how can she leave him now?

She has obligations, she has duties, and at the moment she does not care. Grey Worm can handle the men and Missandei can handle everything else. They are both alive and whole and she is thankful for it. So many around her have died - she thinks of Viserion, of the unnatural blue flame spilling out from his cold, dead corpse, and she shivers, pulling her coat tighter around her.

Furs are piled on top of Jorah to keep him warm, and she delicately peels them back. He doesn’t stir at the movement, but she can see the shallow rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, shallow but even. His bandages are still white and pristine, the linen soft as she traces her fingers gently across them. The bleeding has stopped, or at least slowed dramatically. Mildly reassured, she arranges the furs back the way they were. The least she can do is try to keep him warm.

“You’re going to survive,” she says. She feels ridiculous saying it, when he can’t even hear her, but she can’t quite stop herself. “I’m commanding you to survive. I’m commanding you to be whole again, Jorah.”

It’s a desperate wish of a command, but he already did it for her once, didn’t he? He found a cure for greyscale because she demanded it from him. He will survive this for her too, she is certain of it, even as fear keeps its cold fingers wrapped tightly around her heart.

She watches him until she can’t stand his stillness anymore, and then she very carefully climbs on the bed, laying out beside him on top of the furs, careful not to disturb him. This close she can feel the warmth of him, and it makes everything feel more solid, more concrete in her mind - he is alive. Injured, yes, but for the moment he is alive, and the warmth of his body is proof enough of it to ease her worry for a time.

***

Something brushes softly against her arm, and Dany only realizes she’d fallen asleep when the movement jolts her back to wakefulness.

“Khaleesi,” says Jorah. His voice is barely intelligible, cracked and broken, but she understands that he is calling for her. He tries to say something else but it comes out too mangled to make any sense of.

“You’re fine,” she says, running a hand along his brow. He’s warm, and she’s not sure if that’s good or bad. “You’re going to be fine, Jorah, I promise.”

It’s an attempt to reassure herself as much as him. He looks up at her with unfocused eyes, and she’s not even sure he can understand her before he passes out again. She watches him for a while, carefully, some mad part of her convinced that he can’t die in his sleep just so long as she stays alert and attentive.

“You’re going to survive,” she says, resting her arm across his chest protectively, as if her body alone is enough to ward off death. “I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.” 

***

“You’re spending too much time with me,” says Jorah. He still sounds awful, and he needs the pillows to help keep him propped upright, but he's lucid and drinking and eating and doing all sorts of encouraging things. 

“Do you want me to leave?” she asks, feigning offense. “All this time I thought you enjoyed my company.”

Jorah sighs heavily. “You know that I do.” His arm twitches, as if he wants to reach for her hand but then thinks better of it at the last moment, and impulsively she reaches out for him instead, her fingers loosely wrapping around his warm wrist. He smiles briefly at the touch, but when he speaks again his tone is stern. “Your people need to see more of you. This is a tense time for everyone, for this alliance,” he says. “And you’ve— You’ve been spending a lot of time alone with me. People will start to get ideas. If not our people, then the Northerners.”

“You’re my advisor,” she says. Really, she does not care in the slightest what the people here might think of her attachment to Jorah. No one else has been with her for as long as he has. No one else was with her in that long night where even Drogon crumpled. None of them will ever understand. “I have every reason to spend time with you.“

“Khaleesi,” he says, in the very gentle tone he’s taken to using when he’s disagreeing with her.

“What is it you’re worried they’ll think?” asks Dany. She pulls his hand to her chest, right above her heart. “Do you think they’ll whisper that I love you? Because that’s true. I do love you.”

He looks stricken, then, and it hurts more than she would have thought. He probably never expected her to come out and say it. “We have time here, Jorah,” she says. “I'm not marching South until you are well enough to march with me.”

His expression darkens. “That may be a long time,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter,” says Dany. “Cersei doesn’t seem inclined to leave her keep. Let her bankrupt herself trying to pay the Golden Company until we are ready to drive her from my throne. The North hates her more than they hate me, they'll feed and house us until we’ve struck her down, even if they grumble about it.”

Jorah closes his eyes, and when she lets his hand slip from her breast he rests his palm against her knee. “The North does not hate you,” he says.

In this she thinks his judgment may be compromised. He loves her, and he is from the North, so in his heart he can't help but believe that eventually the North will come to love her as well. He has disavowed his homeland, and his family, but she can still see their influence in him, now more than ever. And she doesn’t resent him for it. However this conflict for Westeros ends, the North will always be the place that gave him to her, and she can't fully hate it for that alone. 

***

Dany sees him talking to his family sometimes when he is well enough to stand and walk around Winterfell on his own. Lyra Mormont brought a number of tall, strong men with her, and sadly there are far fewer of them now than there were before the Long Night fell on the castle. She thinks that maybe that’s why they seem more willing to speak with their cousin now, despite his exile. There are so few of them left.

If she were younger, or knew him less well, she might be nervous about his loyalties, but she is long past that sort of thinking now.

“I’ve had a raven from Greyjoy,” she says when he makes his way back to her. He moves slowly, but he seems steady enough on his feet. 

“Have you? And what did Yara have to say?”

“She wants to talk, face to face,” says Dany. “I was thinking we might meet her fleet at Bear Island, if you think they would have us. And if you think you’re well enough to travel.”

His expression is difficult to read. "And if you'd like to go," she added. "It's not a command. I haven't decided anything yet." 

“They won't object,” he says after thinking it over. “They’ve got no great love of the Iron Islands, but Yara’s a far sight better than her uncle. They’ll have no issue fighting alongside her.”

Better than the alternative seems to be the highest opinion she can hope for from the North, but so long as Cersei is still on the Iron Throne it’s enough for the alliances they’ve built. “Good,” she says. “And you think you can handle the trip?”

For a moment she thinks he might suggest that she go without him. She will refuse, though, if she can’t have him with her. She’ll make Yara cross land and meet her here in Winterfell if she has to. Whatever happens next, she will have Jorah beside her. She will not be separated from him again.

“I can handle it,” he says.

***

She should have asked a maester if he was well enough to travel instead of asking Jorah himself. He never would have denied her once she made it obvious she wanted him to come with her, but she can tell that even the short journey is straining him.

They share a horse - they are short on horses now, as they are seemingly short on everything after an unnaturally cold winter and the the Night King’s razing, and the massive draft horse they borrow from Winterfell’s stables is more suited to the terrain than the Dothraki horses they brought with them. Sansa had not seemed eager to loan them more than one, though. She rides in front of him, and she can feel his labored breathing against her back, can see the stiffness in his body as he dismounts with uncharacteristic awkwardness. 

Her dragons follow them above, drifting across the cloudless sky. “If horseback is making your injuries worse then we can finish the journey on Drogon,” she says. “It’ll be much shorter." 

Jorah arcs his back, and she sees the twinge of pain on his face. “I’m fine,” he says. “I don’t want to be separated from the rest of the caravan.”

She looks out at the others with them - some of her own people, come to help her with the Iron Islanders, and some of Jorah’s family, taking what belongings they have left from the dead back home. Right now she would like to be separated from them. It’s cold, but the deep, painful cold people felt in their bones had gone with the Night King. Now it’s only just cold enough to keep the snow. The sun shines brightly against the landscape blanketed in endless white, promising a swift approaching spring. The winter's been brutal, but it seems as if it will be short as well.

It’s good weather to fly in, but she resolves to keep to the ground. “You’re right,” she says. “It’s not much longer anyways.”

***

They make it to Bear Island a day ahead of Yara, and then there is nothing to do but wait for her.

“I would offer to show you around, but there isn’t much to show.” Jorah leans agains the fire place heavily. He must be exhausted, even if he's unwilling to let it show. 

Dany looks out the window of their borrowed rooms towards the harbor. The town covering the stretch of land between the keep and the harbor is a small, dark place, and there are far fewer people around than she’d expected. Maybe because of the wars, maybe because of the winter. Or maybe it's just a solitary sort of place. “This island has suffered, hasn’t it?”

Jorah nods. “But the island will recover. The people here are strong. It’s not a place that has ever tolerated weakness.”

The town isn’t much to look at, but if she looks out further, out to the ocean waves breaking against the icy rocks, she can see a kind of beauty to the landscape. She closes her eyes and listens to the waves for a moment, the distant rhythm of their pounding soothing. She can feel Jorah behind her, a solid presence at her back.

She turns to him, opening her eyes again. “How is your chest?” she asks.

“Fine,” he says, and she shakes her head. She reaches for her bags, and pulls out the linen she’s tucked away.

“Let me see,” she says, and he hesitates just long enough to make her think that he might refuse her. Then he reaches for his coat, tossing it to the bed before reaching for the buckles of his armor. And then there’s his jacket, and his shirt, and his undershirt - so many clothes in a cold climate. They're both buried in layers of leather and cloth and fur. And then there’s nothing left but the bandages, crossing over skin already marked by greyscale. Scars on top of scars.

She reaches for him, and he takes her hand in his before she can touch him. “I can change my own bandages,” he says.

His palm is warm against her skin, heavy and solid. She can still see the pain his injuries cause him when he moves, but he already has so much of his old strength back.

She has to rise up on the tips of her boots to kiss him, and even then she only manages to reach his jawline with her mouth. “I want to do it,” she says, rocking back on her heels after the fleeting contact, and he holds onto her hand for a long time before he acquiesces. She directs him to sit on the edge of the bed and he obeys, and when she peels back the old bandages she’s relieved to see that the long ride has only irritated some of the stitches, not torn any of them open again. Then she patches him up again, adjusting the linen wrappings until she is satisfied, probably taking more time than is necessary but not really caring. 

And now that he is sitting down and she is leaning over him it’s much easier for her to reach his mouth.

“Khaleesi,” he says, softly, the adoration in his voice just as clear as the cloudless winter sky.

His hands settle around her waist, holding her, supporting her, and for a moment she feels that everything is the way it should be. She is safe, and she is loved. “Stay with me,” she says, kissing him again, running her mouth along the rough skin of his jaw. “Promise me you’ll never leave.”

“I swear,” he says, his hands sliding up her back, and she wonders why she waited so long to take hold of him like this. He’s been with her since the very beginning, since she climbed out of the pyre.

And she knows now that he’ll be with her at the very end, whatever end is coming.


End file.
